Hello, people! Nightlingbolt here! Welcome back to "The ABCs of Natsu and Erza!" Today's prompt is L for Lost!

So yeah, five days since my last update. Bet you guys weren't expecting that. And I come with an even bigger treat near the end, though if you follow me on Twitter (which you SHOULD, by the way!), you'd know what that... actually, shit, I spoiled that in my profile last night. Oh well, I'll just say it again. Lyon and Sherri make an appearance in this chapter, along with their son Caen.

Finally, a BIG thank you to IceCreamAndPizza if you're somehow reading this. Chapter 2 of her Pokeshipping fic, "The Joys of Children" totally inspired this chapter. I saw it back in May or so, and I'm like, "God, I can totally see Faye pulling this kind of crap." So again, major thank you!

I own the city of Marin, Faye and Tai Dragneel, as well as Caen Bastia. However, they are only original characters, and Hiro Mashima owns damn near everything else.

It wasn't often Natsu and Erza got to bring the kids with them on a mission. Hell, it was rarer still whe

n they took missions together these days. But they had found a simple job that paid a respectable amount. Best of all, they had had the client before, and Erza trusted her enough to babysit Faye and Tai while she and Natsu did what they had to do.

That's how the Dragneel family found themselves in the city of Marin, a bustling seaside town famous for its shopping center. The plan was to find and arrest the dark mage that was extorting the local businesses and hopefully leave a day for exploring the city, and it went off without a hitch.

Currently, Erza had found a Hearts Kreuz outlet and opted to look inside, leaving Natsu to look after five-year-old Faye and three-year-old Tai.

"Out! Daddy, out!" Tai demanded. Natsu smiled. Both his kids never liked to sit still for too long. Faye was old enough so she could walk on her own, but poor Tai was going stir-crazy from that stroller.

As Natsu took Tai out of the stroller, he pondered for a moment why they were necessary. Igneel had never needed one with him, and he remembered being as hyper as hyper could be.

"Daddy, I'm thirsty!" said Faye. "Can I please have a juice box?"

"Me too, please!" chimed in Tai.

Natsu laughed boisterously. Erza really drilled politeness into those kids! "Sure thing guys!" he said with a smile. He turned away from the kids towards the bag Erza had brought to get the kids their drinks.

Big mistake, Natsu.

"Urrrgh!" Natsu groaned. "I'd forgotten how much Erza loves shopping!"

"Aye," agreed Happy. "But at least she's not as bad as Lisanna, or God forbid, Lucy."

"Yeah," said Natsu. "At least Erza's mostly a window shopper. Lucy makes us… carry bags!" The Salamander made a face at this.

"Well, the good news is, whenever I'm with Lisanna, Bixlow's always there with his dolls carrying stuff," said Happy.

"Yeah, Bixlow may be creepy, but when it comes to shopping, the man's a saint," said Natsu. He frowned. "We're out of the apple juice," he groaned.

"So?"

"Faye loves her apple juice," said Natsu. "Tai will drink anything, but for Faye, it's apple juice or nothing." He turned around. "Hey, Faye, we're out of apple juice, can you drink-" He stopped mid-sentence to find Faye not where she was, and for that matter, Tai was gone too.

"Happy… did you see where the kids ran off to?" asked Natsu.

"I was busy talking to you," said Happy.

Natsu was starting to panic now. "Faye? Tai?" he called out nervously. "No hide-and-seek now!" No response. "Faye? Tai?"

"Erza's going to kill you," Happy pointed out helpfully.

"Don't you think I know that?" yelled Natsu. "We gotta find the kids before Erza realizes they're gone!"

"Aye, sir!" said a determined Happy. "You look that way, I'll look this way!" Happy pointed in opposite directions to emphasize his point, and like that, the Exceed and Dragon Slayer were off to find the kids and/or stop Erza from totally destroying their asses.

Meanwhile, Faye had dragged her brother into the Hearts Kreuz store. "Faye!" Tai whined. "We have to stay with Daddy!"

"Don't worry!" Faye said with a grin. "As long as we find Mommy, he won't care!"

"But how are we going to find Mommy?" Tai asked.

"I'll use my Dragon Slayer senses, silly!" said Faye. "Mommy has a real pretty scent that's hard to miss!" She sniffed the air, looking for a whiff of her mother's scent. Having found it, she yelled "Let's go!" and whisked Tai off to where Erza was.

That would be looking at a long coat in the back of the store. When she heard Faye's voice acknowledging her mother, Erza dropped the coat in surprise.

"Faye? Tai? What are you kids doing here? Where's Daddy?" she asked them.

"Daddy was talking with Happy and I got bored, so I went to find you!" said Faye happily.

"I wanted to stay with Daddy!" said Tai indignantly.

Erza grimaced. Faye definitely had her father's attention span, that was for sure. "Where's Daddy now?" she asked.

"I think he's still outside the store!" said Faye.

"God, I hope so," thought Erza, preferring to keep her mind off what Natsu could do in his desperation. Spurring her children onward, they began to search for the Dragon Slayer before he could do any real harm.

Natsu was in a frenzy by now. It had been ten minutes, and there had been no sign of his son or his daughter. To make matters worse, Erza was probably hunting him down and looking for blood.

He wouldn't blame her, though. He had really screwed up this time, possibly even worse than Erza's one night stand with Jellal. They could work through that, but if anything happened to their babies…

No. Natsu would not continue down that train of thought. He had to find them before that became a reality. He HAD to!

Of course, shaking random mallgoers while asking if they'd seen his son, daughter, or both was not really the wisest choice of action. But when you have to answer to Erza Dragneel, you don't want to fuck anything up in the slightest. Except this was as far from slight as you could get.

Out of the corner of his eye, Natsu spotted Lyon and Sherri Bastia, along with their son Caen. Natsu got along well with Lyon, which is odd considering his relationship with Gray and the fact that they practically used the same magic. But this was not the time to contemplate irony.

"Lyon! Thank God! I lost Faye and Tai and now I need your help to find them before Erza totally kills me!" Natsu rambled.

Lyon stared at Natsu with a deadpan expression. "And this is my problem how, exactly?"

Natsu gaped. "Damn it, man! I'm desperate here!" he yelled.

Sherri slapped him. "How dare you use that language in front of my son!" she screeched.

"He was going to hear it eventually," said Lyon, totally unfazed by what was going on.

"Lyon!" Sherri gasped indignantly.

While the adults argued, Caen took a stance and muttered, "Ice Make… Eagle." A bird of ice materialized in his hands. Then, using a little Doll Magic, he established a visual link with the creature and sent it off flying.

"Natsu… what is going on here?" a feminine voice growled. Natsu turned around to see Faye and Tai safe and sound beside an angry Titania.

"Er-erza!" stuttered Natsu.

"Hi, Daddy! Hi, Caen!" said Faye excitedly.

"Oh, there they are," said Sherri. Caen sighed and dispelled the bird.

"Where have you two BEEN?" Natsu roared. "Do you know how worried I was?"

"Worried for them, or for your own a-"

"Lyon!"

"Butt?"

"We were with Mommy the whole time!" said Faye.

"Why didn't you say anything?" asked Natsu.

"Mmmm… it's funnier that way!" said Faye with a grin.

"WHAT?"

"No, it's not, Faye!" said Erza in a no-nonsense tone. "Your father thought you were in real danger! Something bad could have happened!"

"Silly Mommy! Nothing bad could happen as long as you're around!" said Faye.

Erza just let herself absorb the compliment. "Just don't do anything like that again, okay, honey?" she said oftly

"Okay, Mommy," Faye promised.

"And especially don't drag your brother into these situations!" said Erza.

"I won't, Mommy."

"So, I guess we'll be on our way then?" said Lyon. "Come on, Caen." The Bastias walked away, but not before Faye gave Caen a dirty look, which the six-year-old just ignored.

"And as for you, Natsu…" Erza began with venom in her voice. Natsu sighed. The shit was really hitting the fan now.

Erza sighed. "I suppose this situation resolved itself," she said. "But in the future, please pay more attention to the children."

"I was getting them juice boxes!" Natsu complained. "Happy was supposed to watch them!" A thought occurred to him. "Where is Happy, anyway?"

Wouldn't you know it, Happy was at the seafood restaurant trying to talk the hostess into giving him a fish.

And there we go! I have to say, I had fun writing this one once I got going. Including Lyon and Sherri was, in all honesty, a spur-of-the-monent decision. They didn't really need to be there, yet somehow, it works. I dunno, I guess I just wanted Natsu to find a semi-friendly face to aid in his search, but Lyon... eh, he just doesn't care.

I'll be working on M for the next few days, and when that's posted, I'm putting this story on a month-long hiatus. During this time, I hope to go over every little inconsistency I can find in this story and fix it, since I'm trying to keep all these chapters connected.

I actually have a couple ideas for stories independent from this canon, but we'll see where those lead. And again, I am NOT working on Conversion anymore, so don't even ask.

Anyway, I've said about all I need to say, so until the next chapter, peace and love from Nightlingbolt! Buh-bye!